A following loud sound reduces the loudness of an earlier short sound

Evidence

The effect of pre-masking on loudness is quite interesting and can be measured if a second loud sound reduces the loudness of a preceding short sound when separated from the second by only some 10 ms. An example of such an effect is indicated in Fig. 8.15. The inset shows the temporal configuration of the two sounds. A 5-ms, 60-dB, 2-kHz tone burst preceeds a uniform exciting noise burst with a critical-band level of 65 dB. The distance between the test.-tone burst and the uniform exciting noise burst is indicated by iJ.t. The loudness of the test-tone burst is measured by comparing it with the loudness of a 2-kHz tone burst, also of 5-ms duration, which is not followed by t.he uniform exciting noise. The solid curve of Fig. 8.15 shows the results of such loudness comparisons by indicating the loudness of the temporally partial-masked tone burst as a function of the gap duration between the tone burst and the following uniform exciting noise. The loudness of the [i-ms, 2-kHz test-tone burst in unmasked condition reaches about 1.9 sone. This value is also obtained with large values of iJ.t near 200 IllS. — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 1241

Categorization

• XREF: The ~200 ms gap at which masking disappears corresponds to the window of temporal integration/loudness summation in psychoacoustic models. — connects to: Loudness develops over time after a sound ends, so later noise can interrupt it; Sounds can mask both slightly earlier and later probe sounds; Sound perception decays slowly and can mask a following sound (+1 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Professor Dr.-Ing. Hugo Fastl, Professor Dr.-Ing. Eberhard, Psychoacoustics- Facts and Models, 1241

Broader Connections

• Sounds mask both preceding and following sounds in time #corroborates (0.90)
• Sounds can mask both slightly earlier and later probe sounds #corroborates (0.85)
• Sound perception decays slowly and can mask a following sound #corroborates (0.78)